Choice Lit Topic: Mentor Texts
It’s all about the right book at the right time, given to the right student or used in the right lesson . . .
Here is where we gather all those suggestions from our contributors for using mentor texts, including lesson protocols and scores of video examples.
Results
Reflections on Our Year of Read Alouds (BOOKLIST)
Read aloud is a key time in reading workshop with my grades 3 and 4 students. We all sit in a circle on the floor, coming together as a community...
Literary Nonfiction: Models for Writing
I have never felt as comfortable with nonfiction writing in my elementary classroom as other genres. The products never have much variety. Somehow, students' nonfiction writing always ends up sounding...
Helping Struggling Writers
I've found there are two kinds of struggling writers in my classroom, even though any struggling writer has some unique personality traits. At the start of the year, some students...
Helping Students Find Their Own Mentor Texts
We believe a mentor text is a book that offers myriad possibilities for our students and for ourselves as writers. Lynne Dorfman and Rose Cappelli Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through...
The Books We Can’t Live Without in Our Teaching: Resource Round-Up
It was late afternoon one day last spring, almost twilight, that mellow time after children are gone and planning is finished, when conversation rambles among friends in empty classrooms. Jennifer...
Old Elm Speaks: Connecting Poetry, Observation, and Reading
In this first installment of a three-part video series, Aimee Buckner shows how observation skills, poetry, and reading instruction come together with the mentor text Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems...
Picture Reading in First Grade
In this read-aloud lesson from Katie DiCesare's first-grade classroom, Katie demonstrates the importance of picture reading using the wordless picture book The Zoo by Suzy Lee.
From Questions to Drafts
Aimee Buckner shares the mentor text Could You? Would You? with her 4th grade students. Aimee explains how questions are a springboard to interesting writing topics, and models connections she...
Writing Comics: Introducing the Activity
In this lesson from a 4th grade classroom, Sarah Thibault introduces students to a writing activity. Students will be creating their own comic books, after extensive preparation and experience with...
Talking About Tests
For several years, I have been spending about a month before state testing on a test-taking genre in reading. It works like any other genre study, allowing students to learn...
Inferring Read Aloud Part I
Using picture books to teach strategy instruction is not only popular, but works. When my sixth graders see me pull out a picture book during the first week of school...
Crafting Characters in Writer’s Workshop
In this lesson from writer's workshop with grades 3 and 4 students, Franki Sibberson helps students analyze character traits through whole-class and partner work with the lead to The Secret...
Narrative Nonfiction in Fifth Grade, Part 1
In this lesson from a fifth-grade classroom, Aimee Buckner guides students in a notetaking process to help them understand the qualities of nonfiction narrative writing.
Building Community Access to Texts Through a Lending Library
Stories affirm our experiences. They challenge our comfort zone. They give us space to hibernate and pull us out of our isolation when we need to be reminded we aren’t...
Inside and Outside Views Minilesson
Ruth Ayres explains the importance of "inside" and "outside" views in writing using a student mentor text in this lesson with second graders.
